With approximately 2,000 of its student members volunteering within the UVA and Charlottesville communities each year, it’s no secret how much of an impact Madison House has had and continues to have on Grounds and beyond. With all of its volunteer pathways falling into one of four categories (Animals & Environment, Education & Youth, Health & Medical, and Human Services), there are plenty of options for all of those who are interested. However, secrecy surrounds one of Madison House’s many programs, HELP Line, which maintains strict anonymity for most of its volunteers. HELP Line is a completely student-operated telephone hotline that provides emotional support, confidentiality, and further resources to anyone in the University of Virginia or larger Albemarle County area, thus offering a wider (and perhaps more personable) scope of services than CAPS.
Prior to this semester, I knew very little about HELP Line; in fact, I wasn’t even aware that there was a student crisis line separate from CAPS. This likely has to do with the fact that the vast majority of its volunteers aren’t allowed to discuss their involvement and that little information has been widely shared regarding HELP Line and its role in the UVA community, thus contributing to a veil of mystery surrounding it. To uphold some of the most important facets of the program, such as empathy and confidentiality, anonymity is strictly enforced for all of the volunteers who answer calls on the crisis line. As such, I met with the non-anonymous program director of HELP Line, Jeremiah Clyburn, to shed some light on the truth about this organization, which provides vital mental health support and resources for countless people in the UVA and Charlottesville communities.
To uphold some of the most important facets of the program, such as empathy and confidentiality, anonymity is strictly enforced for all volunteers who answer calls on the crisis line.
How and when did you get started with Madison House’s HELP Line? How did you become the program director?
Jeremiah: “I got started my first semester of my first year, but I wasn’t technically initiated by choice. Back when HELP Line was much smaller and before volunteers applied, we had a system where the volunteers could anonymously nominate someone who they thought would be good to be on the line and go through the training. One of my closest friends’s sisters was on the line, so I got a cryptic email… it was cool! And that’s how I joined, and then I fell in love with the training throughout the first semester. It was really applicable to my life; I’ve come into contact with a lot of mental health struggles with my friends and family growing up, and so I resonated with the training and how this was touching real people. I was on the outreach team my second semester, and I loved getting more involved with the community. So, I applied for outreach program directors, and I got it.
HELP Line would do a lot of tabling around Grounds, but I was really interested in youth mental health education because I feel like that’s something that would have been really valuable for me growing up. And so I started a lot of initiatives, partnering with Charlottesville high schools, giving presentations, and moving further into the community. Seeing how many other aspects there were to HELP Line made me want to go into an even larger role, so I applied to be the head program director, and it’s been smooth sailing for two years now!”
Let’s shift gears and look at the internal structure of the organization. What is HELP Line’s club culture like?
Jeremiah: “When we think of the general culture of a UVA organization, I don’t know if that’s how I would describe HELP Line, but I would still describe it as a sort of vertical family. When you join and do the first semester of training, you see your trainers every single week for that one night, and you get really close. You build that community with your training and as you move throughout HELP Line.
After I leave, I want the volunteers to be connected from within so they can continue to stay driven to do all this work for the organization.
We’re confidential and anonymous, so we can’t really have social events, right? As a first year, I knew my shift partners, but I didn’t know the other volunteers. Our current volunteer liaison is doing amazing work focusing on how to have anonymous events for the volunteers. After I leave, I want the volunteers to be connected from within so they can continue to stay driven to do all this work for the organization.”
How would you say HELP Line involves itself with the UVA community?
Jeremiah: “We do presentations with different organizations on Grounds; for example, we did a collaboration with Outdoors Club where we gave a presentation on crisis intervention and what strategies you can use for many different situations. We did our general presentation on mental health disorders, empathy, and reflexive listening, as well as specific strategies in terms of those kinds of things. After the presentation, we turned it around and did roleplays, like we do in our own trainings, and talked them through how to approach different scenarios.
Two of our main events are tabling at the resource fair at the beginning of the semester, and at the end of the semester we do something called Bodos & Blue Books, where we sit outside by Clem and offer free blue books and Bodos for students while they’re studying for finals, just to give them some inkling of calm during a very stressful time for UVA students. This semester, we have also done a guest presentation with Professor Paul Perran, who did a suicide talk for the organization, and we are possibly creating a collab with One Love, which focuses on interpartner violence, to do a fundraising event at the end of the semester. We’re also trying to do a collaboration with the UVA Eating Disorder and Exercise Concern Coalition. We have our hands in many different pots at UVA!”
What kind of work does HELP Line do with the greater Charlottesville community?
Jeremiah: “During my time as the outreach program director my second year, we didn’t really have the infrastructure for moving our work to the community and the mental health space, specifically in the youth sector, because all of our work was focused on UVA, which was great work, but it was time for growth.
We had this relationship with College Mentors where we would give presentations to the mentors and their mentees. It was really simple; we would just do interactive exercises on reflexive listening, how to be a good friend, and how to identify your emotions, since a lot of those kids were elementary schoolers. That was our first step to working with youth from the community.
A lot of the work that I did with my team of about 15 outreach members was emailing and talking to higher-ups in the Albemarle and Charlottesville county schools. We’ve been able to work over the last few years and get our presentations in schools, and now we’re working with the Miller School, so we’re in the private school sector as well. So, a lot of my second-year work was about planting seeds so we could get even more involved in the local schools.”
What kind of changes have you, as the program director, made to HELP Line?
Jeremiah: “We have two training program directors that are involved with recruitment and looking at applications, but the big thing they do is run training throughout the entire semester using our manuals. Going into my third year, we got a grant to work with clinical psychologists from CAPS to do a general touch-up and overhaul of the manual.
Your first semester in HELP Line is 10 weeks of training, with each week being a new topic, and this culminates in three exam calls throughout the semester. We start with general empathy—how to navigate a call where someone is maybe having a bad day and working through difficult emotions—while the last two weeks are suicide prevention. We work with manuals for each of those. Between my second and third years, I worked with the training program directors and the clinical psychologists at CAPS, who gave us recommendations and feedback for making changes in the manual. A lot of it was smaller things—how we phrase certain things on the line for, for example, assault and abuse—and updating it based on current literature surrounding crisis navigation.”
What do you envision for the future of HELP Line?
Jeremiah: “HELP Line is in a very strong place right now. All of the program directors are so passionate about their specific paths, and they’re doing such great work in them. One of my biggest dreams is, because I’m interested in psychiatry and I want to do this kind of mental health work, increasing outreach for youth education. I would like to push further into the Charlottesville community. I would love to continue doing outreach for the public and private schools, giving mental health presentations to the students. But on top of that, I think it’d be great to work with organizations like SARA and Boys and Girls Club to see if we can do even more outreach events.
I think the strongest impact HELP Line has had, as it's evolved over the past four years, is digging into the soil of Charlottesville.
I think the strongest impact that HELP Line has had, as it’s evolved over the past four years, is digging into the soil of Charlottesville. [HELP Line] is such a great resource for UVA students who have trouble navigating CAPS, along with community members of Charlottesville who maybe don’t know the mental health landscape as well and can’t access CAPS. I think really focusing on deepening those connections to Charlottesville is important.”
For people who are interested in mental health support and outreach, whether through Madison House or through other means, what advice would you give them?
Jeremiah: “Mental health is such a vast field. In terms of professional work, you can always go the route of medical school and psychiatry, so there is that route, but there is also counseling, and schoolwork, and research in that professional avenue. But, if you’re the kind of person who wants to work in the CIO space or you just generally want to help others, there are so many different organizations, like HELP Line, One Love, NAMI, and the Women’s Center, which are all doing amazing work.
In terms of advice, I think it can be daunting to enter these kinds of spaces. There is a possibility that someone could pick up the line and they could be thinking of attempting right then and there. You’re both in a very vulnerable space. But I would say that, even though it’s scary, your passion will carry you so far. The number one thing I love to say is that your first and biggest qualification for mental health work and advocacy is being a human being. You’ve already got that, and you’ve already done it—you just need formal training. You, as a person who has lived and experienced, who can feel, and who can see others for who they are no matter what they’re going through… you’ll be good.”
